Absolutism

Form of government in which the ruler has absolute authority and is subject to no constitutional safeguards or checks. Where the rule is a naked tyranny no theoretical justification may be offered. But, if the rule is claimed to be beneficial, justification may be offered on grounds of the ruler's access to privileged knowledge, or his claim to be sanctioned by a higher power.

In Plato's Republic the philosopher-king was to be granted absolute authority because only a trained philosopher was truly wise enough to rule; he was the shepherd of the human flock. In the Politics Aristotle criticised Plato's paternalism, arguing that the flock and the family are not fair analogies with civil government. The predominance of Christianity provided for the possibility of justification of absolute rule as sanctioned by God, or God's representative on earth, the Church. During the 13th century Pipes Innocent III and Innocent IV claimed a unique power for the papacy. This plenitudo potestatis they conceived as a general power of review over any question whether secular or religious. Boniface VIII extended the papal position in the bull Unam sanctam (1302). In the same year the theologian, Colonne, gave a philosophical defence of the absolute ultimate authority of the pope based on the idea that that things spiritual are inherently superior to matters temporal. Only those subject to God, and thus to the Church, could lawfully exercise authority.

The theory of papal sovereignty was criticised by Marsilio of Padua and William of Ockham. But this criticism of the early 14th century was not successful and the theory of papal absolutism became the archetype of the theory of royal absolutism of the 16th century. Machiavelli in The Prince, argued that the head of state was omnipotent not as of right but if he chose to be so, though he thought that a state could only be stable if the Prince acted in accordance with law and with regard for the rights and property of his subjects. His theory has been regarded as a just picture of the internecine political life of the Italian City States of the 16th century.

In England during the 16th century the theory of royal absolutism did not arise, because during the despotism of the Tudors, the power of the king was not seriously threatened; however, absolutism as a theory became prominent under the Stuarts. In France on the other hand, certain Huguenot writers such as Francis Hotman were driven by religious persecution to question it and to assert that the ruler was the servant and not the master of the community. At the same time Bellarmine, a Jesuit, defended the spiritual authority of the pope against the growing power of despotic national monarchies. The power of kings was secular and only the pope has his power directly from God.

In the 17th century Hobbes defended the absolute authority of the state 'that great Leviathan', as the precondition or order and liberty in society. The state existed as the result of a voluntary original contract amongst members of a society but the contract was not binding upon the ruler. For Hobbes, who had lived through the English Civil War, the choice was between an omnipotent sovereign and no society whatsoever. His theory was compatible with parliamentary government so long as it was strong government. Hobbes is almost unique amongst absolutist thinkers in holding that the benefits of authoritarian rule must accrue directly to individuals; the general will, or in modern terms, public interest is for him a figment of the imagination. Hobbes fled to France during the English Civil War and Louis XIV, who became king while he was there, is often quoted as the archetype of absolutist ruler.

The ad hoc, non-rational absolutism of Hitler and Mussolini was characterised by the idealisation of the leader and the ethnic group. 'Whatever the leader says is good for the nation, is good for the nation'. A study of the absolutist states of the 1930s and 1940s in Germany, Italy, and the USSR reveals certain similarities; central direction of economic life, the suppression of free speech and political opposition, the cult of the personality, and police supervision of the ruling party, are amongst the most prominent.

© JM Dent/Historybookshop.com

Recommended reading

Enlightened Absolutism 7.5% off
Scott, H.M. (ed.) — £15.26 (normal price £16.50) —